The wireless dongle for the Steam controller is pretty bad too. The pads are also pretty loud and clacky. The double touchpad is its real practical saving grace, but I find myself going back to the 360 controller for titles that are better with a gamepad. The Big Picture mode the thing recommends you use is pretty awkward, and Steam's UI isn't very agile to begin with.

Ironically, I spent the rest of the unboxing weekend playing Titanfall 2 on Origin with a mouse and keyboard.

The best controller I've used so far on PC has been the XBox One Elite controller. It's obviously very expensive but it's extremely comfortable and more durable than regular XBox One controllers and shaped better than the 360 controller. They still haven't updated it with the Bluetooth capability that the new white controllers have though, and those by the way feel like cheap garbage, I bought one for a laptop and everything about it feels flimsier and sloppier than the original XBox One controllers.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Red Dead Redemption 2 looks like shit.

But seriously it just looks like more open world fetch and "go here and kill" quest. GTA V with horses.

In fact most open world games look like shit especially GTA V. Consumer computers don't have the processing power to realistically depict what a city is like or how people react and interact with each other and their environment. Never feels like an open world but more like a small playground. I will give these games a try when 16 core CPUs are the standard someday.

I didn't mind GTA V as much as Skyrim. The diversions were interesting enough that I didn't feel like it was taking away from the primary quest. But like Skyrim, I never finished it. I think I got about as far as the jewelry store heist.

I've got a PS4, so it's probably inevitable that I'll pick up R2D2 at some point. Beeo boop.

I haven't played a video game in like 8 months. It's kind of sad because I used to get so much joy out of playing video games. I guess that's a common feeling moving on from anything you enjoyed as your interests and life moves on.

Briefly looked at the steam sale front page and am frustrated with how little has changed in gaming actually. Another Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Fall Out 4 (2015), GTA V (2015), Witcher (2015), Squad (2015/Early Access) , XCOM (2016). Some DLC for these. A bunch of Anime games. A whole lot of old school RPGs and indie games. A lot of streaming channels to watch.

Thoughts:

1. EA and other developers creating their own platforms killed Steam. Of all the games I mentioned, the top games of Steam, I only own Fallout 4 and am still disappointed with the line up. Battlefield 1 and V would have been cool to see but that is Origin. Fallout 76 is on Bethesda's platform. WoW and everything else by Blizzard is on Battenet. Microsoft owns Minecraft etc. The only thing Steam has going for it is your old friend's list and library but if you really cared about your online friends, you have them on Facebook or something else by now.

2. In terms of how the games actually look and operate, again not much change. There hasn't been any dramatic changes to the scale of games or style. 32 v 32 is still the usual for shooters. Where is the 64 v 64 or 128 v 128? All triple AAA games seem to be open world now but like I said before, open worlds still feel as dead and lifeless as they did when GTA IV came out.

3. Streaming is awful and I think that is the worst time sink imaginable. At least on Facebook, you see people you know and can talk to about stuff later. Listening to a podcast or reading a book is informative. There are some great television series and movies in the world and you can learn some stuff too if you pick your things right. But streaming is just watching someone play a game and perform in front of you. Playing games was a waste of time but at least you interfaced with it. Watching someone stream is like watching reality T.V. but worse.

I think I picked up War of the Chosen for XCOM 2 on sale last year. It's a vast improvement over a surprisingly vanilla base game. Should've been in there at launch.

I definitely agree about streaming. I used to watch a fair amount of gamers on youtube way back when. Concise, well-edited content in a ~20 minute package. Since that time, YT has disincentivized gaming channels so they've moved to the cash cow of twitch where people with more money than sense will give them money for attention. It just makes for worse watching as people react to donations or just waffle about. I don't care if the video comes out on YT later - cut together the good parts instead of giving me 8 hours of a bulk.

I think if people want to pay twitch streamers, that's great. I usually find that when content is filed down by an editor and put on youtube, the donation reactions are removed and it's a far more watchable way to fritter away free time.

My Uplay account is still linked to my Steam account so I guess it has that going for it. Steam's also great for indie content and those humble bundle keys.

Bought The Division (the first one) on sale in a while back and have been in the endgame for about a week now. It seems immensely boring now. You have to grind for resources to RNG optimize gear and make some sort of theoretically ideal set. I just wanna shoot stuff; I don't want to have a spreadsheet to choose what hat looks good.

This is sort of what Path of Exile has turned into for me. It seems to have gone from about the right amount of overly complicated to ridiculously complicated and disjointed. I have no idea where to respec any of my characters into because I don't understand the current skills, item economy and recent meta, and would probably have to dump a lot of time into playing catch up.

e: also the towns look even more like comic cons with the sheer amount of cosmetic items

Playing the Resident Evil 2 remake. Never played the original. I am glad this is my first time with the series because the game is fantastic. I don't remember the last time I felt that way about a AAA release.

One of the last series that made me feel what legitimate sense of wonder and immersion that a video game can evoke was the first two Thief titles. I haven't gotten into RE, but people tell me to start with #4.

funny what you remember. 2 is the one that starts in a fucked up cityscape right? i think the licker isn’t that far after that. there’s a boarded up window at the end of a corridor. christ. must be at least 15 years.